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One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
In Milos Forman's Best Picture-winning drama (of the
top five awards) based upon Ken Kesey's anti-establishment book about
a wise-guy anti-hero pitted against the Establishment, institutional
authority and status-quo attitudes (personified by a supervisory
nurse):
- in an early scene, non-conformist,
rebellious patient/prisoner Randle Patrick (R. P.) "Mac" McMurphy
(Jack Nicholson) was being transferred from a 6 month term in a
prison work farm into a mental ward institution in Oregon; he was
informed by the hospital's head, Dr. Spivey (Dr. Dean Brooks) that
he would be tested "to determine whether or not you are mentally ill";
McMurphy responded that his crime of statutory rape of a 15 year
old was unjustified: "And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit
there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me.
If that's what's bein' crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it,
gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it";
he also described himself as "a god-damn marvel of modern
science"
- some of the memorable inmates/patients, included:
Memorable Patients
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Strong and Silent "Chief"
Bromden, aka "Broom" (Creek Indian) (Will Sampson)
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Articulate, Repressed Gay Man Dale Harding (William
Redfield)
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Anxious and Stuttering Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif)
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Childish Temper Tantrum-Prone Charlie Cheswick
(Sydney Lassick)
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Belligerent and Tall Max Taber (Christopher Lloyd)
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Delusional, Impish Martini (Danny De Vito)
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- in a memorable scene, McMurphy
played basketball in the fenced-in, outdoor exercise yard; on the
shoulders of Bancini (Josip Elic), a Frankenstein-like inmate,
he demonstrated how to dunk the ball in the hoop: "It's called,
uh, put the ball in the hole"
- McMurphy introduced card games (with pornographically
illustrated cards) and black jack gambling (betting with cigarettes
as currency)
- McMurphy faked taking his pills, after asking
Nurse Ratched's assistant Nurse Pilbow (Mimi Sarkisian) about the
ingredients of his "horse-pill" medications during one
of the compulsory lineups for pill delivery: "But I don't
like the idea of taking something if I don't know what it is...(joking)
I don't want anyone to try and slip me salt-peter. You know what
I mean?"; afterwards, he showed Harding that he hadn't swallowed his pill
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McMurphy's Pill-Taking Regimen - Faking
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- McMurphy's opposition to
the stern, rigid and authoritarian Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher)
increased, and he was determined to oppose her restrictive rules: "I
bet in one week, I can put a bug so far up her ass, she don't know
whether to s--t or wind her wristwatch"
- McMurphy playfully squirted water on the other patients
as they played Monopoly in the tub room, and then bet them that
he could escape incarceration by lifting and smashing his way out
of the ward with a heavy, marble-sided hydro-therapy watering station
- but his efforts to do so failed, although he claimed victory: "But
I tried, didn't I? God-damn it. At least I did that"
Squirting Everyone with Water
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Struggling to Lift The Hydro-Therapy Watering
Station
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Defeated But Claiming Victory
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- in two scenes, votes were taken to change
the daily schedule so that the patients could watch the second
game of the World Series - followed by McMurphy's defiance to tyrannical
Nurse Ratched's technicalities (when they were denied TV privileges)
by a recreation of the play-by-play action of an imaginary ballgame
in front of a blackened TV set - contagiously infecting the other
inmates with his enthusiasm
- McMurphy hijacked a field trip
bus for a fishing trip, and pretended that the inmates were a group
of doctors from the state mental institution; along the way he picked
up prostitute friend Candy (Marya Small) at the Riverside Trailer
Court, who innocently asked all the "boys": "You all
crazy?"; the group returned triumphant with a full catch of
fish and smiles on their faces - but they were greeted at dockside
by the police and Dr. Spivey
- during a therapy session, McMurphy delivered a challenge
to the other inmates to leave the institution after learning that
he wouldn't be automatically released: ("Jesus, I mean, you
guys do nothin' but complain about how you can't stand it in this
place here and then you haven't got the guts just to walk out!...You're
no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around the streets")
- neurotic
inmate Cheswick experienced a temper tantrum with Nurse Ratched about
rationed cigarettes: "I AIN'T NO LITTLE KID! WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO HAVE CIGARETTES KEPT
FOR ME, LIKE COOKIES, AND I WANT SOMETHING DONE!"
"You're no crazier than the average asshole..."
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"I AIN'T NO LITTLE KID!"
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- while awaiting electro-shock treatments as punishment
for causing the disturbance, McMurphy was shocked to realize
that huge and towering giant "deaf and dumb" Indian
inmate Chief Bromden (Will Sampson) could actually talk when he lent
him a stick of Juicy Fruit gum: "You fooled 'em, Chief! You
fooled 'em. You fooled 'em all"
- after McMurphy's electro-shock
therapy, he faked a zombie-like return to the ward, greeting them
with: "How about it? You creeps, you lunatics, mental defectives. Let's hear
it for Bull Goose Randall back in action...You ding-a-lings"
- the last straw was McMurphy's organization of a
midnight Christmas party or celebration (a pre-escape party with
alcohol and prostitutes, his two girlfriends Candy and Rose (Louisa
Moritz)), when he encouraged Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) to lose his
virginity with Candy; the next morning when Bibbit was forced to
confess to Nurse Ratched, he felt such shame and guilt that he committed
suicide by slitting his throat with a piece of broken glass
The Consequences of a Party - Gone Wrong
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- beserk over Billy's death, McMurphy made an enraged
strangulation attack on Nurse Ratched - the disastrous consequences
were his complete lobotomization - he returned glassy-eyed, catatonic,
totally passive, and obediently captive to the ward
McMurphy's Complete Lobotomization
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The Chief's Last Hug
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McMurphy's Mercy-Killing
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- in the conclusion, the scene of Chief Bromden's
suffocation/mercy killing of his lobotomized friend with a pillow,
and his escape from the institution ("the cuckoo's nest")
by heaving the previously-immovable hydrotherapy water fountain/sink
through a window
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Randle P. "Mac" McMurphy (Jack Nicholson): "I'm
a god-damn marvel of modern science"
Stern and Tyrannical Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher)
"Mac" Playing Basketball
Card-Games - Betting for Cigarettes
Challenge about Nurse Ratched: "I bet in one week..."
Voting on the Ward for Watching the World Series on TV
Pantomiming the Play-by-Play of the Baseball Game
Infuriated Nurse Ratched
Candy: "You all crazy?"
Charter Fishing Trip
Realizing The Chief Wasn't a Deaf-Mute: "You fooled
'em, Chief!"
Electro-Shock Therapy - Faked
Strangulation Attempt on Nurse Ratched by McMurphy
Freedom for the Chief From the Institution ("The Cuckoo's
Nest")
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